Chapter 29
I swallowed the bile rising in my throat. “I can’t believe it. There has to be a mistake.”
Blaze shook his head. “I don’t think so. I mean, you know as well as I do, that the evidence is what it is. Garrett had that gun in his possession.”
“I’ve worked cases where it seems like?—”
“Beth,” Blaze warned me, giving me a knowing look. “Don’t do this. Don’t make excuses for him. That won’t change the truth, and you know that. He doesn’t remember what he did that night. He did it. He killed her. She was pregnant, too.”
“I know,” I admitted. “But something just doesn’t feel right.”
“It’s just your desire for him to be innocent. That’s all,” Blaze said softly, reaching out and touching my shoulder. “I know what it feels like to be here. I lost my girlfriend years ago, and the circumstances were… weird. It was a lot to take in all at once, that someone we love could be involved in something that we never saw them being a part of.”
I nodded, letting out a sharp sigh. “Yeah, I guess so. I think I’m going to call it a night then.” I pushed myself up out of the rocking chair. “I’ll tell Mom about it tomorrow. She’s already in bed.”
“Things will get better for you, Beth,” Blaze said, grabbing my arm as I went to walk past him. “I know that’s hard to see right now with everything that happened, but once he’s out of here, there’s no reason for you to leave—and every reason for you to stay. Your mom is here… And I’ll stay if you stay.”
I searched his face, wishing for the first time I felt something when he touched me… But there was nothing romantic there. “I can’t make that promise right now.”
“Just think about it, Beth. That’s all I ask.”
“Okay,” I forced the word out as I pulled open the back door and slipped inside. I locked it behind me and peered out the window as Blaze headed out to the barn apartment. The darkness of the house felt suffocating, and I refrained from heading straight up to my bedroom.
Instead, I walked into the kitchen and kicked on the water, filling a glass and taking a sip of it. My phone vibrated in my pocket, and my heart jumped to my throat as I dug it out. No one should’ve been calling me at this time of night, and as I saw Garrett’s name, I choked back a sob. We hadn’t talked since the night at the bridge.
And now, here he was.
I declined the call.
And it rang again.
Pursing my lips out of frustration, I silenced it again. A text pinged a couple seconds later.
Garrett: 911
I frowned at the text, a code word we used to use when he wanted to meet me at the bridge—which now left me unsure and scared. I considered walking out and telling Blaze, but something kept me right there, contemplating. Maybe it was my innate need for denial, but when the phone rang again, I answered it.
“I’m not meeting you at the bridge,” I whispered, my voice strained. “Blaze told me.”
“I didn’t do it,” he said, his voice sharp and confident. “Please just tell me where you are. I’ll come to you. I need to be with you, to protect?—”
“You sound nuts,” I groaned. “I’m going to get Blaze.” I headed for the back door, but as I did, I spotted his taillights… leaving.
“Fine. I’m heading for the ranch then.”
I froze, thinking of my mom sleeping just upstairs. My heart jumped to my throat at the potential danger I might be putting her in. “No, I’ll just… I’ll just meet you at the bridge.” I grabbed my coat, and slipped out the backdoor, locking myself out, keys in hand.
“Okay,” he said, breathing out a sigh. “I’ll meet you there.”
“I’m coming armed,” I snapped, jogging across the yard to my car. The wind whipped around my hair, blowing it into my face and I shivered as I ripped the door open.
“Beth,” his voice was soft. “You know I’d never hurt you.”
“Yeah, but you did.”
“What?”
I started my car. “I would’ve jumped off the deep end with you, and while I understood that you had loose ends to tie up—which I now know was a murder, divorce, and unwanted pregnancy… Not in that order.”
“No.” His voice strained as he repeated himself. “No, that’s not it. Just meet me, okay? Call me a client or something, just please.”
“Don’t try anything stupid.”
“Deal. I’m almost there,” he said, sounding relieved. “I’m about to turn off the highway.”
I hung up the phone, tossing it into my passenger seat as I flew down the dirt roads. Part of me thought I should call someone, let them know where I was going… But there was also a part of me that believed Garrett. Maybe there was something he knew. Maybe he was forced to do it.
My mind tried to conjure up anything and everything as I floored it through the final corner to the dead-end road. The moon illuminated the gravel, and as I approached the bridge, I saw headlights pointing toward me…
Something internally screamed at me. Just leave it and go home.
But I pushed the warning thought away, pulling and parking along the side of the road—the opposite side as the headlights.
Here we go.
I reached into my console, searching for the pistol that I had kept there for years. I fished through the documents, desperate to find my .380. “What the hell?” I nearly shouted at it. I glanced back up at the bright lights, blinding me. “Seriously Garrett?”
I kicked open the driver’s side door, and slid out, the air feeling a little cool as it hit me in the face. My nostrils filled with the deep woodsy smell of the brush surrounding me, and what once had been one of my favorite scents now made my stomach churn. In the moment, it was hardly comforting. My first time being intimate had happened down here.
And now, for all I knew, the same person was about to murder me.
I stood there, just outside of my car at that thought, for a few seconds longer, staring at the headlights and waiting for Garrett to jump out. I carefully took a step toward the bridge, and gravity pulled my door away from me, clicking shut. I pulled out my cell phone, pulling up Garrett’s phone number, and hitting the call button.
But the door flung open instead.
I stopped the call and slid my phone back into my pocket. “Whatever you have to say, you can say from there,” I snapped, folding my arms across my chest as the wind cut through my jacket. Boots thudding across the wooden bridge, I made my way to the railing, my heart racing as I kept my eye on the open door, still blinded. I tried to shield my eyes as the lights dimmed—and then cut completely.
Why the heck is he blinding me like this?
I squeezed my eyes closed and then opened them, catching sight of a figure. A small one. As my sight adjusted to the dark, I realized I wasn’t looking at Garrett’s truck. It was a Tahoe. A black one.
“He’s not here, is he?” A feminine voice called out, and I made out Brittany, Garrett’s wife—er, ex-wife? Whatever she was.
“Um…” I eyed her as she jogged up to me, her expression filled with fear. “What are you doing here?”
“I knew he’d come to find you. You have to leave Beth. Now. He’s dangerous.” She shivered under a black jacket, her dark hair braided out of her face. “I don’t think you understand. You have to go. ”
“How did you know I’d be here?” I asked her, unable to let go of her presence.
“I, um, I put an app on his phone when we were married.” Her face fell in defeat. “I don’t really know how to help him, and that was my way of knowing where he was. I left it on there for safe keeping, and continued to try so hard to keep up with him—and I know that we were over, but I just kept praying that he’d come back, you know?” She looked back up at me, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Yeah, I get that,” I said, my shoulders slumping. “I’m sorry that it didn’t work out...” my voice trailed off as her eyes narrowed at me.
“Do you know where he is now?” Something in her voice caused me to rethink the situation.
“Uh... He… He was supposed to meet me here.” I swallowed hard, sensing her change in demeanor as she shifted her body to the left, blocking my way back to my car. “I really don’t know what’s going on… But I’ll go.” I held up my hands, making a move to slip past her.
She stepped in my way, her eyes darkening. “Really? Because you’re all he’s talked about since you showed up to town. Actually, I guess that wouldn’t even be the truth. The man has gabbed about you since I met him. Every time he got drunk, he’d go ranting and raving about needing to tell some bitch named Beth he was so sorry. He never called me when he got drunk. I had to make him think he did.”
I raised my eyebrows at her, my heart now pounding inside my head. “My brother was his best friend, and he lost his friend. That’s all it was.”
“How cute you think that,” she snapped, her eyes boring into mine. The hair on the back of my neck stood on end as she took a step toward me. “You know what else is cute?”
“What’s that?” I choked out, tightening my grip around the railing. I had no idea what level of psycho I was dealing with, but based on the dead panned look in her eyes that I recognized in some of my clients… This wasn’t good.
“The fact that Sarah thought she was going to be the one who changed Garrett,” she laughed, shaking her head as she reached into her back pocket. I was not surprised when she pulled a pistol out, holding it out at me—but I was surprised it was mine . “You can drop the act now. I’ve been dying to talk to someone about what happened.”
And she has no intention of letting me live to snitch.
“Okay,” I held my hands up. I was going to have to have an exit strategy, and my mind was already calculating just how far it was to the creek beneath me. “Whatever you want to talk about, but Garrett is on his way here.”
“No,” she cackled. “He’s not. He’s getting cuffed by your ranch manager. I called him with his location a few minutes ago.”
My heart sank, but I had to try. “Someone will still come. I told everyone where I was going.”
“Yeah, whatever,” she snorted, rolling her eyes. “Anyway, so Sarah thinks that she can change my husband. Like she starts calling him up, and trying to convince him to go to treatment, all the while he’s still crashing on my couch. I was trying to save my marriage and she was just out there trying to be a jezebel and steal him away. I even took his guns to try and make him a better law-abiding citizen, like me. He took his shotgun back, but I kept the pistol... for awhile. ”
The gun. The gun was with Brittany. The realization hit my chest like a ton of bricks as I feigned a sympathetic look. The pro to being a lawyer was knowing when to fake it—and right now, my life was on the line. “So, what did he think about it? Sarah? And your efforts?”
“What did he think?” Brittany scoffed, shaking the gun around in a way that made me nervous. “Let me tell you what he thought. He thought that he was man enough to actually change for her. We all knew it was a lie, but he gave it a shot…a shot that ended with her knocked up.”
The wheels in my head were spinning, trying to put the pieces together. “So, Garrett was the one who got Sarah pregnant?”
“Oh my gosh, are you seriously this dense? Yeah, he got her pregnant. Obviously. Do I need to explain how babies are made, Beth?” Her voice was shrill as she spoke, the end of that gun still waving around in my direction.
She had to have broken into my car… But when? I should’ve put up security cameras…
But as my thoughts ran wild, I nodded, maintaining a low surrender with my hands. “Okay, sorry. I’m just trying to keep up.”
“Sarah swore that it was Lucas who was the baby daddy—she swore it all the way to the grave. She said she and Garrett never even slept together. Can you believe she had the balls to say that right to my face? She was just a bold-faced liar. ”
Maybe that’s why Lucas was so upset.
He knew she was pregnant.
“That’s awful,” I said, forcing the words out. “So, you killed Sarah?” I couldn’t hide the surprise from my voice as I took in the tiny little brunette.
She burst into a fit of sardonic laughter. “ You sound so surprised—like what did you think? Garrett actually did it? There’s no way that man could sober up enough to kill someone, and honestly, he’s too easy to mess with. I had him convinced he was still madly in love with me, drunk calling and all that. Like I said, the bastard never called me.”
I nodded, trying to process an overload of information, all the while trying to figure out if it’s possible to survive or at least leave damning evidence behind me. “So, you really think that you’re going to drop me dead in the same place as Sarah and it not be connected to Sarah’s case?”
“Give me your phone,” she demanded, pointing to the bulge in my pocket. “I don’t give a rip what you say about anything.”
“Okay then,” I muttered, digging my phone out of my pocket. I glanced down at the screen, seeing three missed calls from Garrett and two from Blaze. I quickly swiped them clear using my thumb and hit the call button, pleading the call back to Blaze would be enough to bring someone in this direction—even if he couldn’t hear what was happening.
“So, what else did you have planned. Tell Sheriff Myers?” I asked, tossing the phone to Brittany’s feet face down, hoping to bust the screen.
“He’s under the assumption that his dear boy killed Sarah. I provided him with evidence tonight. Garrett had a second cell phone, unbeknownst to him.”
“But he was plastered the night that she was murdered, calling Sarah on his own phone.”
“Says you, the only one who puts him at Outlaws. I saw him by this bridge that night on my way home from my bible study—right around ten-thirty. It’s an open and shut case.”
“Smart,” I commented as she took another step forward, the barrel now much closer than I preferred. I glanced behind her, hearing the distant sound of...a vehicle?
“ Ugh ,” I heard her grumble and the gesture with the gun. “Climb up on the rail.”
“What?” I played stupid.
“Climb up on the rail now or I’ll shoot you dead and leave you here in the middle of the road.” She lunged forward and I stumbled back, immediately climbing up the back of the rails.
I wrapped my fingers around the metal, realizing that I was only seconds from causing my mother absolute devastation—and that thought alone tore my heart apart. It was one thing to die. I wasn’t afraid of that. I just... I didn’t want to leave my mom, not right now. She deserved a daughter who stayed, who gave her grandchildren and a shoulder to lean on through all the grief she had gone through.
I should’ve told her I was staying. I should’ve stayed instead of running away all those years ago. For mom. And for Garrett.
I glanced behind me peering down as Brittany lifted the gun. It was just a guess as to whether or not I would survive the fall. My vision went hazy, my ears roaring with my heartbeat as I braced myself to let go.
But the eruption of a gunshot beat me to my release.